Many feared dead as block of flats in Miami partially collapses

[EnterpriseSovereign]

A wing of a 12-floor Florida beachfront apartment building collapsed early on Thursday, killing at least one person while trapping residents in rubble and twisted metal.

Scores of rescuers pulled survivors from the debris of the building in Surfside, a small town outside Miami, as a cloud of dust floated through the neighbourhood.

Surfside Mayor Charles Burkett warned during a news conference that the building manager told him the tower was quite full and the death toll was likely to rise.

“The building is literally pancaked,” Burkett said. “That is heart-breaking because it doesn’t mean to me that we are going to be as successful as we wanted to be in finding people alive.”

Ten people were treated at the scene and two were brought to the hospital, one of whom died, Burkett said, adding that 15 families walked out of the building on their own.

Rescuers have pulled 35 people from the building and were continuing to look for more, Raide Jadallah, assistant fire chief of operations for Miami-Dade Fire Rescue, said at a news conference.

Work is currently being done on the building’s roof, but Burkett said he did not see how that could have caused the collapse. Authorities did not said what the cause may be.

The collapse left a number of apartments in the still-standing part of the building exposed.

Television footage showed bunk beds, tables and chairs still left inside the damaged apartments. Air conditioner units were hanging from some parts of the building, where wires now dangled.

“I’ve lived here my whole life, and I’ve never seen anything like this happen,” the mayor said.

Barry Cohen, 63, said he and his wife were asleep in the building when he first heard what he thought was a crack of lightning. The couple went onto their balcony, then opened the door to the building’s hallway to find “a pile of rubble and dust and smoke billowing around”.

“I couldn’t walk out past my doorway,” said Cohen, the former deputy mayor of Surfside. “A gaping hole of rubble.”

He and his wife eventually made it to the basement and found rising water there. They returned upstairs, screamed for help and were eventually brought to safety by firefighters using a cherry-picker.

Cohen said he raised concerns years ago about whether nearby construction might be causing damage to the building after seeing cracked pavers on the pool deck.

Santo Mejil, 50, told the Miami Herald that his wife called him from the building, where she was working as an aide for an elderly woman.

“She said she heard a big explosion. It felt like an earthquake,” Mejil told the newspaper. He said she later called him and said rescuers were bringing her down.

Miami Dade Fire Rescue was conducting search and rescue operations, and said in a tweet that more than 80 crews were “on scene with assistance from municipal fire departments.”

Police blocked nearby roads, and scores of fire and rescue vehicles, ambulances and police cars swarmed the area. Teams of firefighters walked through the rubble, picking up survivors and carrying them from the wreckage.

“We’re on the scene so it’s still very active,” said Sgt Marian Cruz of the Surfside Police Department. “What I can tell you is the building is 12 floors. The entire back side of the building has collapsed.”

The collapse appeared to affect one leg of the L-shaped tower. Piles of rubble and debris surrounded the area just outside the building, and cars up to two blocks away were coated with with a light layer of dust from the debris.

The seaside condominium development was built in 1981 in the south east corner of Surfside. It had a few two-bedroom units currently on the market, with asking prices of about 700,000 US dollars (£500,000).

The area has a mix of new and old apartment buildings, houses and hotels, with restaurants and stores serving an international combination of residents and tourists.

The community provides a stark contrast from bustle and glitz of nearby South Beach with a slower-paced neighbourhood feel.

Link.

[Dominus Atheos]

A wing of a 12-floor Florida beachfront apartment building collapsed early on Thursday, killing at least one person while trapping residents in rubble and twisted metal.

Scores of rescuers pulled survivors from the debris of the building in Surfside, a small town outside Miami, as a cloud of dust floated through the neighbourhood.

Out of morbid curiosity, how many "trapped" "survivors" did they actually "pull from the debris", like after the first few hours? I assume zero, but I'd be fine if I was wrong.

[EnterpriseSovereign]

A wing of a 12-floor Florida beachfront apartment building collapsed early on Thursday, killing at least one person while trapping residents in rubble and twisted metal.

Scores of rescuers pulled survivors from the debris of the building in Surfside, a small town outside Miami, as a cloud of dust floated through the neighbourhood.

Out of morbid curiosity, how many "trapped" "survivors" did they actually "pull from the debris", like after the first few hours? I assume zero, but I'd be fine if I was wrong.

I imagine the way the building came down anyone rescued would have been on the top floors. Apparently they've found a dozen bodies so far in the week that has passed, however there's still a hundred more yet to be found. At this point though they're not actually saying it they're not expecting to find anyone alive.

[Solauren]

While it's possible they'll find survivors at this point, it's pretty unlikely, and if they do, the survivors would be in bad shape.

[Raw Shark]

Anyone alive in the rubble at this point would need a water supply. While I suppose there's some chance of rain or a broken pipe or something trickling directly into your mouth in that scenario, the odds are probably worse than for winning the lottery.

[EnterpriseSovereign]

There was mention of fires breaking out in the rubble as well. So far the causes of the collapse seem to be a combination of design flaws and poor maintenance.

[Broomstick]

A wing of a 12-floor Florida beachfront apartment building collapsed early on Thursday, killing at least one person while trapping residents in rubble and twisted metal.

Scores of rescuers pulled survivors from the debris of the building in Surfside, a small town outside Miami, as a cloud of dust floated through the neighbourhood.

Out of morbid curiosity, how many "trapped" "survivors" did they actually "pull from the debris", like after the first few hours? I assume zero, but I'd be fine if I was wrong.

The only person pulled alive from the actual rubble was Jonah Handler who last I heard is still recovering but for having a building fall on him he wasn't too badly injured. The other person pulled alive from the rubble was his mother, who later died at the hospital.

The other people rescued from the building were people in the still-standing part taken off their balconies by fire department ladder trucks.

First responders did hear a woman calling for help low down in the pile and attempted to find her through the concrete in the lower level of the parking garage but could not locate her/extract her and eventually stopped hearing her voice. I gather that was what all the activity in thigh-deep water down the lower level was about early on.

I've been following this in between bits of my life and I have additional information if people are interested, but I likely won't have time to post it until tomorrow.

From the way they're talking about "human remains" I think they aren't always recovering entire intact bodies but rather parts for the most part, which is slowly positive identification.

[Dominus Atheos]

A wing of a 12-floor Florida beachfront apartment building collapsed early on Thursday, killing at least one person while trapping residents in rubble and twisted metal.

Scores of rescuers pulled survivors from the debris of the building in Surfside, a small town outside Miami, as a cloud of dust floated through the neighbourhood.

Out of morbid curiosity, how many "trapped" "survivors" did they actually "pull from the debris", like after the first few hours? I assume zero, but I'd be fine if I was wrong.

The only person pulled alive from the actual rubble was Jonah Handler who last I heard is still recovering but for having a building fall on him he wasn't too badly injured. The other person pulled alive from the rubble was his mother, who later died at the hospital.

The other people rescued from the building were people in the still-standing part taken off their balconies by fire department ladder trucks.

First responders did hear a woman calling for help low down in the pile and attempted to find her through the concrete in the lower level of the parking garage but could not locate her/extract her and eventually stopped hearing her voice. I gather that was what all the activity in thigh-deep water down the lower level was about early on.

I've been following this in between bits of my life and I have additional information if people are interested, but I likely won't have time to post it until tomorrow.

From the way they're talking about "human remains" I think they aren't always recovering entire intact bodies but rather parts for the most part, which is slowly positive identification.

One and a half is still more than I was expecting, so that's good.

[Broomstick]

Since tropical storm/hurricane (I'm not sure of this morning's classification) Elsa is on the way to Florida with expected landfall in a day or two the decision has been made to take down what is still standing. Today, apparently. The plan is apparently a controlled implosion to drop the remaining structure more or less straight down, attempting to avoid spilling over into nearby streets and property and to spare the current rubble pile.

I hope that goes well.

The remaining structure is just too unstable, it's been shifting and moving and dropping stuff, and with Elsa moving in if people don't bring this down then nature is likely to do so in a messy manner.

[Broomstick]

The remaining part of the building is down. Looked like a fairly routine controlled demolition but what do I know? At this point they're (literally) waiting for the dust to settle.

[Broomstick]

10 more bodies found since the demolition, but no more survivors. I think we're on day 14 so it is highly unlikely anyone living will be found. The searching has spend up considerably with the removal of the teetering building fragment hazard.

The official death toll is up to 46 now with with 94 unaccounted for. I hope the recovery of bodies is in some way helpful to the family and friends of the deceased.

[LadyTevar]

I heard on the radio on my way home 9pm (EDT) -- they've finally stopped calling it a "Search and Rescue". It's now officially "Recovery".

14 days, and they finally admit that they'd not heard any sounds or found any traces that anyone survived past the first 24hrs.

[Broomstick]

Honestly, the first few days it was entirely reasonable to call it "search and rescue" given the history of other people being pulled alive from wrecked buildings and lack of knowledge about the inner structure of the rubble pile.

I'm pretty sure officials knew it was recovery and not rescue at the point they brought the rest of the building down, but publicly announcing that was problematic.

14 days out it becomes very justifiable to say "no survivors" even if not every bit of rubble is removed. Also, being able to dig into the pile more aggressively it became clear that there just weren't void spaces in the rubble. Given time and new information this made the change in status inevitable.

Would I have made the change earlier? Maybe. Maybe not. I'm not one of the people on the ground.

An upside is that the clean-up can proceed more rapidly and the families will be able to know, for sure, their loved ones are deceased and not just missing. I hope that helps.